Hans’ Oscar Bites

What better place to start my annual run-through of Oscar categories than an overview of the newest Oscar category, and the first new category since Animated Feature was added way back in 2001? An ensemble category has been one of the most clamored-for categories at the Oscars for ages, with the highest ensemble honor in the industry being awarded by the Screen Actors Guild. The conundrum was always with how one would honor excellence in ensemble work without handing out 15 Oscars statues to each individual ensemble member. The compromise was made of creating an award to honor the casting director of the film, a thankless job that extends beyond the name actors above the line.

The nominees are:

• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another
• The Secret Agent
• Sinners

In order of preference:

5) HAMNET (Nina Gold)
Speaking of the aforementioned SAG Ensemble Award, one of that award’s most egregious flaws is the fact that an actor who doesn’t have a solo on-screen credit isn’t listed as part of the nominated ensemble, which means that Jacobi Jupe, the titular Hamnet and the driving force behind much of the emotional gravitas of the latter half of the film, is not honored for his role. Even though he is not credited for a nomination here, obviously, Nina Gold’s work in finding him, a genius trick of casting considering that his older brother and established actor Derek plays a pivotal role in the final sequence of the film. At the end of the day, this is also very much a career honor for Nina Gold, who has cast everything from Game of Thrones to Star Wars to Narnia to Les Mis, etc etc.

4) MARTY SUPREME (Jennifer Venditti)
Definitely one of the more inspired choices for the casting award goes to Jennifer Venditti’s work in this pseudo-biopic spanning two different cultures at a particularly delicate time in world history. The largest nominated cast at the SAG Ensemble this year, a particularly noteworthy task here was looking beyond the typical Rolodex of background actors to cast individuals who could competently look like they could be world class table tennis competitors while still exuding an appropriate period look. Indeed, non-professional actors Tyler the Creator and Kevin O’Leary are particularly fantastic finds here.

3) ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Cassandra Kulukundis)
While One Battle After Another clocks in at a rather healthy 2 hours and 42 minutes, one of my favorite aspects about it is how each section or chapter almost feels like its own little short film, all coming together for one big epic. Each of those distinct vignettes required their own concentrated efforts in making sure that as a whole they would play organically with the larger narrative. In particular, small roles like the immigrants being pursued by ICE, the guys who Leo whistles at, the high school kids, the whole of the revolutionary group, all of these needed to have taken particular care to ensure an authentic whole. Four acting nominations attest to this film’s incredible casting, not to mention the woefully nominated Chase Infiniti.

2) THE SECRET AGENT (Gabriel Domingues)
An international feature making it into this new category, considering the small size of the casting branch, is truly a remarkable feat and emblematic of the efforts the Academy has made to expand its international footprint. And why not, this film feels so real and lived in and a huge component of that is the very authentic Brazilian cast that peppers the various settings of the film, including the refugee home, the birth certificate office, the police force, the mob, etc. While Tânia Maria, the matriarch of the refugee home, was not directly cast by Domingues, her presence and beloved performance is still vital in making the whole ensemble feel very unified.

1) SINNERS (Francine Maisler)
Giddy up, everyone, because we get 16 categories to talk about Sinners this year, and I will be very bullish along the way on many of those categories! From a casting perspective, the work is as on screen as it gets, as we weave our way through 1930’s Mississippi and the cast of diverse excellence seen throughout. The scenes at the juke joint, and in particular The One Scene that stretches across time and space, are the biggest showcases of the casting talent, but then there’s also the individual achievements of an out-of-nowhere performance by Hailee Steinfeld, whom heretofore almost no one knew was part black but plays into the character in an essential way, and Li Jun LI and Yao as the Chinese entrepreneurs representing a little-known demographic of this culture.

WILL WIN: Sinners
COULD WIN: One Battle After Another
SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE: Weapons; every single one of those cast kids knew the assignment in that final scene